with customs officers at the heart of the fight against trafficking

For Irish, a 9-year-old labrador, it’s not time to retire. He has too much work. Thus, this February 2, after a routine check on the A63 motorway from Spain. A fellow in uniform camped at the exit of the toll booth, under a blazing sun. The “lobster” – that’s his nickname – watches for the trucks. A white truck with no sign or frills catches his eye. The driver’s face is concealed by a mask and large glasses. According to its waybill (the CMR, in the jargon), the truck loaded plants in Malaga bound for the Netherlands. But why so much excitement?

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During on-the-fly checks, it’s all about intuition… and smell. Plunging his nose into the trailer, the customs officer recognizes the familiar smell. It remains to obtain the opinion of its expert. Over the course of his long career, Irish has uncovered dozens of tons of drugs. He sniffed prison visiting rooms, schools, airports. Fabrice, his master, admits that even on vacation, his dog sniffs dope. “For him, he tells us, it’s a game. But when it’s holidays, I don’t move. And then the sensitivity of the sniffer dog is not an exact science. He may wag his tail at empty caches or pants that have just been exposed to smoke. The sign to go? When it stands on its two hind legs. “Let’s go, guys! Fabrice yells then.

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This time, the truck is emptied: palm trees, olive trees give the parking lot the appearance of Jardiland. At the end of the move, only stacked plastic pots remain in the trailer. The “lobster” sticks to it: it climbs and gropes. Then his voice resounds: “Loaded! The cries rang out in the parking lot. It’s the general euphoria, the driver turns pale. Some, in such a situation, try to flee. “They have always been caught up”, breathes Jean-Louis Breton, the head of the post, proud of the physical condition of his team. Many served in the 1er RPIMa, the elite regiment of Bayonne. In the jars, dozens of vacuum bags stamped with the cannabis brand. The procedure will occupy the customs officers for part of the day. Then the driver will be questioned; he will be offered a doctor, a translator. It will be necessary to warn the prosecution, the lawyers, the ministry, then to drown in the bureaucratic constraints. And meanwhile, the traffic continues.

Since growers in the fertile southern Spanish province of Almeria switched to growing cannabis, the A63 has become the supply route for all of Europe. And this toll, a showcase for law enforcement. The teams make numbers there.
Ten days after our visit, customs officers intercepted a truck there carrying 879 kilos of cannabis. In recent days, a go fast convoy has been stopped in the area loaded with almost half a ton.

An unmarked white truck attracts attention. The driver’s face is concealed by a mask and large glasses

“We recover Spanish and Moroccan production, explains Yann Tanguy, the regional director of customs. Before, there were a lot of manual hatches; now, they are electronic and, with the remote opening, more difficult to find… We must modernize our means, to bring us up to standard. “There are all kinds of traffickers. Customs officers in Hendaye say they found kilos of cannabis in a “family” car, where a mother and her children had been “hired” for the trip, in that of a disabled person who allegedly had a stroke, accompanied of her nurse, or even in the coupé cabriolet of a young beauty in a miniskirt. “Gone are the big mafias that exercised a monopoly.

Today, the range of organizations is wider, more fragmented. There are many individual initiatives, we are witnessing the uberization of traffic, ”explains Florian Colas, the head of the National Directorate of Intelligence and Customs Investigations (DNRED). Located in the suburbs of Paris, the DNRED is one of the institutions overseen by the national intelligence coordinator. His specialization? Narcotics and all that goes with it: money laundering, financing of terrorism, etc. The shadow of the DNRED often hovers over the biggest cases: “56% of customs seizures are made from our information”, says Fabien Colas. It specifies that, in 2021, customs made 70% of cocaine seizures in the territory, 67% of cannabis seizures and 75% of synthetic drug seizures. “Most often, these catches are the result of long-term work with a presence in the ports, partnerships with local authorities and the use of human sources. It is this combination which, on the night of January 18, led to the record seizure of 1.4 tonnes of cocaine in Martinique. »

The operation was carried out by the team of Bruno, a captain who, for ten years, has been criss-crossing the coasts of Martinique aboard the “Tarpon”, one of the two interceptors based on the island. In the summer of 2021, this 12-meter semi-rigid, powered by three 300 horsepower engines, set off in pursuit of a “Chabin’an” skiff, a local fishing boat. “At 50 knots, says Bruno, he dragged us into the rocks. But it was he who plastered himself! The agents of the “Tarpon”, all howling sirens, pointed their HK 40 pistols without giving the traffickers time to draw their own AR13 assault rifle. “One of them was so shocked that he couldn’t even speak,” recalls one of the agents. On January 18, other crews were much less impressed… Three Latvians, an Estonian, a Croat and a German from Costa Rica had boarded the “Malanga” and the “Victoria”. Arrived from Venezuela, the two sailboats were anchored in Marin Bay, in Martinique. They were already under close surveillance.

“From our boat, we could see sparks in the cockpit of the ‘Malanga’,” says Bruno. The crew was sawing off the tank with a grinder. The captain then took a discreet approach: “We had to avoid attracting the attention of others…” On board the 15-meter, burlap bags were ripped open. This time, he was not at all cooperative. We can understand it: the boat was carrying the equivalent of 40 million euros! What to pay for… a long stay in prison. Six men will be arrested and placed in customs detention before being entrusted to the judicial police.

At the end of January, customs officers in Le Havre also intercepted 1.4 tonnes of cocaine: unheard of! On April 26 again, the port of Le Havre was the scene of a chase with exchanges of fire: 280 kilos of cocaine seized. Same story in Marseille, with 514 kilos of powder in the port at the start of the year, followed, on May 5, by a chase in the opposite direction on the A8 motorway for 68 kilos of coke.

Fewer mafias and more petty dealers, the traffic is getting uberized

If 2021 saw an explosion in traffic, 2022 will be the year of all records. “Producers amassed a lot of stock during the Covid period, we are told at the headquarters of the National Directorate of Customs Coastguards (DGNCD) Antilles Guyana, in Fort-de-France. Now that the flows have resumed, they are even doing promotional operations. The same phenomenon is observed on the high seas, where the anti-narcotics mission is devolved to the French Navy. Based in Martinique, the aeromaritime force covers an area as vast as the western Mediterranean. On May 24, naval commandos approached a boat. “They had time to throw their cargo overboard. But we were able to recover 561 kilos of cannabis, ”says frigate captain Côme, who led the operation from Fort-de-France. On January 29, a similar intervention resulted in the recovery of 680 kilos of cocaine. Here too, the traffickers had dumped the cargo. “We recovered 90% of it. The remaining 10% will end up somewhere on a beach, or in a fisherman’s net…

Each seizure is then entrusted to one of the five customs laboratories. More than half arrive in Paris, most of the time via Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport. “We analyzed around 12,000 drug samples in 2021, compared to 8,000 in 2020”, explains the site manager. From his point of view too, business has never been so dynamic. Listening to him, the traffickers redouble their inventiveness. “We have already found drugs hidden in paintings, vacuum-packed ground coffee, baby jars, crisps, clothes, bottles of wine and whiskey…” Almost always sent by freight. And if e-commerce has developed a lot, we are also witnessing the strong comeback of “mules”. The proof, this staggering operation carried out in Guyana on May 24: warned that they were going to be subject to a check, 28 passengers on an Air France flight departing from Cayenne did not show up for boarding; 15 were temporarily banned from boarding a plane, and five were arrested for drug trafficking. Of 283 passengers, only 233 were able to board. Fifty people potentially involved. Mind-boggling!